Personal Privacy or Safety? Shocking amount of Americans willing to give up personal privacy to the government

A new poll shows 56 percent of Americans support the notion of government surveillance on internet communications without a warrant.

According to a new poll, the majority of Americans are willing to sacrifice personal privacy for an increased feeling of safety.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to a survey conducted in spring 2014 by PewResearch.org, 74 percent of Americans did not want to sacrifice privacy and freedom in exchange for safety. 

Forty-nine percent believe their bigger concern is that policies have restricted civil liberties too far, while 93 percent believe it is more important to control who gets their information.

Only 6 percent of Americans claim to feel comfortable with government agencies keeping their private records secure.

Despite these numbers, a new poll taken by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, in the span of only one year the numbers have made a drastic change.
Fifty-six percent of Americans now favor government surveillance over internet communications without a warrant. These surveillance instances include United States citizens.

Both Republicans and Democrats received a majority claim that the government should access Internet activities to search for suspicious activity that could potentially be connected to terrorism.

Only one-third of Americans under 30-years-old believe the government should have access without a warrant, but nearly two-thirds of 30 and older believe the surveillance is necessary.

One major factor in the dramatic change in numbers includes recent terror attacks. The San Bernardino shooting, the Paris attacks and the alarming number of migrants willing to risk death in their efforts to take their family to a safe country has pushed Americans to regard safety as a priority above privacy.

The poll was conducted online and by phone between December 10 through the thirteenth. The people selected were drawn from NORC's probability-based Ameri-Speak panel, which was designed to represent the population of the United States.

The margin of sampling error for all respondents combined is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points and respondents were randomly selected using address-based sampling methods. Each person was later interviewed online. Please note: People who do not have access to the Internet were interviewed as well, via phone.

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